|
|
|
| Quick Links |
Applications for Tekmos Products:
- Automotive
- Industrial
- Military
- Medical
- Telecommunications
|
|
|
| Greetings! |
 | | Happy 4th of July |
Welcome to Tekmos Talks July. Last month was an incredibly busy month with next month promising the same.This month's newsletter will talk about the search for a new fab with a temporary fab closure, and about high temperature labels. We will also share Tekmos' "news highlights" of company activities along with revisiting New Year's resolutions, including the launch of new Tekmos products.
|
From the Desk of the President
|
 | Lynn Reed, President
|
Temporary Plessey Semiconductor Fab Closure
fab renovation, and their 200 mm, 0.35u manufacturing line will be down from October 2013 through May 2014.
This came as a surprise to us, particularly since we manufacture about 60% of our material there. We can divide the material into custom product and standard products. A custom product might be an ASIC or a microprocessor with a customer ROM.
We are building over a year's worth of inventory on our standard products. And if that turns out to not be enough, then we will tool it up at another foundry to provide more material.
Custom product is more challenging. We have been doing ASICs for over a decade, and many of those have minimal volumes. In most cases, our die inventory exceeds a year of demand, so there is no problem. We do have a few cases where we are in high volume production of a custom micro. In these cases, we will have to build up a year's worth of inventory to insure that we can meet demand. And what happens if the customer under forecasts and needs more? In that case, we will have to tool that product up at another fab.
The semiconductor industry is volatile. We sell the products we do because other semiconductor companies either discontinued them or went out of business. Our strength at Tekmos is the flexibility to adapt to these changing conditions and do what is necessary to assure a continued flow of product to our customers.
For more information on inventory or orders, please contact Bob Abrams, Vice President of Sales & Development or call 512-342-9871
|
|
|
|
Tekmos Talks High Temperature Labels
| 
About half of our micro shipments are user programmable. Unfortunately, our different technology means that for the most part, we are not supported by commercial programmers. And so if the customer is not using something like ISP (In System Programming), then we have to program and label the parts for them.
We can easily program the parts on our automated testers. Indeed, for larger customers, we include the programming as part of the final test.
The difficult part is in the labels. We have to have a label and ink that will survive the RoHS surface mount temperature profile of about 250C and the subsequent board cleanings. And the inexpensive Avery labels won't stand up in that environment.
It turns out that you can buy Kevlar labels that will stand up, and this is what we use. We also use our barcode printer with the plastic film ink. The only problem with this is that when we load the labels into the printer, it will waste about two feet of them as it goes through the alignment cycle. Since that is about $10 worth of labels, this causes me pain, especially since I have to change the labels out when we are done to switch back to regular bar codes.
Eventually, we will replace this with a laser writer. We have one that we bought at auction, but it is in storage now since we are very short on floor space in our manufacturing area.
For more information on
|
|
Thank you for reading Tekmos Talks. Contact Bob Abrams, Vice President of Sales & Business Development, call (512) 342-9871 or email Sales for more information on our most recent "tape outs", our high temperature ASIC, or our other quality products.
We appreciate our customers. Tekmos is meeting innovation every day for tomorrow's challenges.
Sincerely, |
|
|
|
|
